Comments

Comment by Birdcage

That's got to be wrong...2.5 speed dagger? 0.5 slower than any other dagger...

I had to check, but no...mutilating with it would be bad. The top end is almost the same as the Gladiator's Mutilator...but not quite.

Comment by Hadrial

the spellpower on this may be lower then the Titansteel Guardian, but unlike the guardian, the dagger provides 30 hit, which is very valuable to those who are starting to raid.

Comment by TayDehPay

obviously a caster weapon, but it does seem odd seeing that the slowest dagger in the game (2.5) is a caster weapon. Imagine if this was converted to a melee weapon with that kind of speed...

Comment by Birdcage

I know that it's a caster weapon

I was saying that with a speed so slow, that I had to check if it was any good for mut rogues when PvPing

Comment by chknnuggts

I know that it's a caster weapon

I was saying that with a speed so slow, that I had to check if it was any good for mut rogues when PvPing

Here's where I lost you...

Comment by ekinorak

Since this is a Dagger, it's the first BoE epic weapon that can be used for mage, warlock , and since the mats are cheap it will be many casters first epic when they hit 80. There is also no epic 1H weapon in heroics to obtain for mages, warlocks atm.

Comment by Baluki

Oooh, very nice. This thing is perfect for me, as an elemental shaman. Lots of crit, a good amount of hit (which I'm lacking) and a solid amount of extra damage. I was just about to get a Guardian made for me, but I think I'll wait until the patch is released now.

Comment by Vaju

I would love if they replaced the crit rating for haste.

Comment by Miner

The reason for the slow weapon speed is the upcoming change to Flametounge. Flametongue Weapon: Bonus damage from spell power now based on weapon speed. Slower weapons will benefit more from spell power.

Comment by Quest

They should have made it a sword then. 2.5 dagger is silly.

Comment by cethis

That would make this unusable for shadow priests.

Comment by Pmipsiile

I must say its awsome for me im very geared but i dont have an epic weapon =/ i got the mats in like 2 days haha <3 Blizz for this whole patch so far ^.^

Comment by mootwo

NOTE: calculating 1 crit per 2 int (if that's still the forumula) you lose an additional 15 1/2 crit, so effectively a gain of (28-15 1/2 = 12.5) twelve and a half crit with the titansteel over the rep blue.

Comment by Kurhan

Actually, this weapon being so slow does make a difference. There are ALWAYS people looking for that little bit more damage. As the first post states, this dagger would not be as good as some others for continued use, but because this dagger has such a slow speed, it would increase a rogue's ambush damage. According to the math I did on it, a rogue with 3318 AP (237 dps) using Anarchy or this weapon, there would be an approximate of 500 damage difference on a crit. And because ambush is an instant cast ability (of course) any rogue can make a simple macro to use ambush then swap to a better dagger for consistent damage.

/cast Ambush/equipslot 16

And if you were to pass up a weapon with a speed of 12, the insane damage bonus from instant strikes you are giving up would make you an idiot. The basic formula for damage caused by instant strikes is: AP / 14 * Weapon Speed + Weapon Damage + Ability Damage, so even if the weapon had 1 damage, a rogue with the previous example 3318 would do 237 * 12 + 1 +180（SS） = 3025 non-crit Sinister strikes. Mutilates would be even more. I do doubt a weapon with swing speed 12 will be out, but throwing it out automatically just because of stats is stupid.

Additionally all the stats on this weapon are non-class / job specific stats, meaning the crit, hit, and stamina would benefit anyone equally.

Basically: Weapon speed matters if the difference is big enough, and +0.7 swing speed from the next slowest really does make a difference.

Comment by Squong

its about damn time they gave mages a crafted weapon that was comparable to the gay maces.....so it lacks a bit of int...oh well...50 dmg + crit/hit > 1 extra spell over a large mana pool anyways

Comment by shawnjacobs

It's a weapon for a caster it doesn't matter the speed on it no one should be trying to use this for any melee class.

You are completely and utterly incorrect. This item is not exclusively for casters. Take enhancement shamans, for example (not a caster class, unless you're a nut). They currently benefit highly from main-hand weapons loaded with spell power but that are low on physical DPS. One common example is Wraith Strike (90.3 physical DPS and 461 spell power) being very slightly superior to Calamity's Grasp (171.3 physical DPS and no spell power). This is partly due to the funkified mechanics of the class as Blizzard has been tinkering with it. But in terms of overall DPS, this spellblade is excellent for 3.1.0 enhancement shaman. So yes, some melee classes could benefit greatly.

Edit: Typographical error and trying to get the items to link right :)

Update: I find it comical that this post is being downrated (likely by those who don't know and haven't run the EnhSim), yet on the Wraith Strike comments, similar comments are being uprated. Here are some of the comments:

Why are you downrating this guy when he's totally right and uprating the wrong person? Enhism shows Calamity's Grasp as having less DPS than Wraith Strike!

The loss of WF, white and SS damage is made up by the large increase on flametongue, lava lash, searing totem, earth shock, lightning bolt and lightning shield.

I would have to agree tis would be a very good enchance weapon. Lower melee DPS, but still slow. More importantly 50% an enhances DPS comes from ES, LB, Magma. Try running the #'s in a sim, i think you would be suprised.

Lesson to be learned? This spellblade is not exclusively for casters.

@Navarra: Just because enhancement shamans have spells, doesn't make them a caster class. :P

Comment by akridas

by the time Blizzard introduces this all pve players that may needed it will already have a similar or better 1h spellcasting dps item, unless they are super unlucky to still have a blue quality 1h. It will be used mainly for "new" 80s that won't do Ulduar anyway right away, cause they will still need to gear up other slots.

Conclusion is, this should have been introduced with launch of WotLK

Comment by linuspwn

In short words, this is specially designed for elemental shamans.The speed is 2.50 in basics and due to 3.1.0 changes of Flametounge Weapon (Shaman abillity) is that your Spellpower will give you an amount which is based of your weapons base speed. In this case it is 2.50 and as you can prob figure, this would give alot more Spellpower than a dagger with the same Spellpower basic but 1.70 in basic haste. ATM the numbers of increasing spellpower from increasing haste is not yet released.

Comment by Azmodanrom

Comment by Sadari

This weapon has a damage range of 99-316..My mother is more reliable than this weapon.There are plenty of other weapons with faster speed and just as high damage, which will easily be made up for by a couple seconds on the damage co-efficient for shaman spells.

Comment by trovalds

Except if it was a bug or change from PTR, this one is trainable by BSs at skill 440. I trained it yesterday on my BS toon, 440 skill.

Comment by cawfee

Too little too late. At this point more reliable caster weapons are available in Naxx 10 / 25, and with a material cost of close to 1000g on most economies, this simply isn't worth it anymore.

Comment by odlund

What about people that didn't start playing right from the release of WotLK, have they magically leveled up to 80 and farmed Naxx?

Comment by BobClown

Comment by menemew

Ye, the brain is for thinking. This is a clear sign of being self-centered, which you all know, isn't good.

Comment by menemew

The blade itself is really badass looking, i love it, don't want a small piece of crap (although, the soulblade is not longer than my finger...), gotta be sharp and gotta be long and possibly some kind of cool effect (which it got).

Comment by Alptraum

What do you guys think about this compared to the Blade of the Keening Banshee (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45208)? You lose 1 hit and 31 crit to gain 11 stam and 43 int (which will make up for some of the lost crit). I'm having a tough time deciding, but I might just be being influenced by how awesome the Banshee sword looks. :)

Comment by akridas

your IQ is too low to understand any logic ... your logic is indeed flawed ... it is crystal clear ... i see you get used to making new wowhead accounts cause your account is a new one ...

Comment by scorpioevil

..........

Comment by Tzuup

Try the auction house, perhaps?

Comment by Gark32

i might add, this is a fine weapon for elemental shammies that are having a hard time hitting the spell hit cap. due to poor itemization there is almost no mail gear that has +hit on it besides T7 and 7.5 (and not all of that has hit rating either).

Comment by Sikot

Anybody have a suggestion for a similarly not too hard to get good off hand to get with this? maybe from a heroic or something else? Would be super helpful.

Comment by Iroared

Well it does have more top end damage than titansteel shanker or fleshshaper.Just to mention.

Comment by siege1979

So it seems so many people have issues with the mats required for this. The way i see it if you are in a good community it really isn't an issue. My main is a BS/ENG so the Titansteel was not that big of an issue and my wife was running a little short on her Hit rating for her warlock and her luck was bad when it came to drops so i threw some TS bars her way and she has a nice new dagger. Then i went and dual talented my alt/priest in the shadow tree. I normally throw the enchants that only take dust and essence at my raid member free on this toon and when i said i was interested in the dagger for his 2nd talent tree one of the tanks in my guild said you get me 2 TS bars and a 40 stam enchant for my new bracers and I'll make you one. I was a member of a guild once that was every man for himself and now I have this group. If you have regular people you raid with that you trust I have found that helping each other out gets every one where they want to be faster than every one trying to grab and claw for it all alone.

Comment by VeganLogic

ZOMGZZ! Clearly the spell damage was put on this specifically for poisons.

Comment by Moethetroll

i have seen quite a few elemental shamans talking about terrible itemizations and what not.

please port your self a few years in the past, and play wow :D u will then realize terrible itemization!

Comment by zdouse

My name is Zdouse and I support the supporting of the comment above the comment above me.

Comment by Sador

I will say this once for the crazy min/maxxers out there who are obsessing over this stat or that stat.

This weapon is BIS until the character starts seeing KT10 or Naxx25, lack of intellect notwithstanding, the combination of +hit and crit rating is monstrous.

Of course I'm a little biased, my friends gave me this and the epic BoE off hand for my birthday as I had recently turned 80 on my warlock.

Comment by aschultz16

As a freshly dinged 80 affliction warlock, I just bought this as my first epic. What are some recommendations for an off hand item?

Comment by Hungraa

I see a lot of posts about rogues using this dagger (high top-end dmg / slow, SpellPower helps poisons, etc.), which is kind of a ridiculous idea. There is also one mini-thread incorrectly quoting Shaman abilities and mechanics and overlooking some important points.

This is a main-hand caster weapon, no doubt. However, there is an unusual class for which this weapon is surprisingly excellent: Enhancement Shaman. Before you immediately down-rate the post, understand some logic:

~50% of an Enhancement Shaman's dmg is increased by spellpower. Specifically their AOE capabilities (and all of their ranged moves) are 100% spellpower based, making this weapon situationally much better than pure DPS alternatives. I know that AtkPow also increases spellpower (by a factor of 30%), but a caster mainhand will increase it by much more than a Melee alternative (weapon DPS is NOT AtkPow, rather, AtkPow adds to weapon DPS and SpellPower as well -- in the case of Enhancement).

The most important stat on a mainhand for Enhancement Shaman is the weapon speed, specifically the slowness. This dagger is strangely slow.

The conversion rate from DPS on a mainhand melee weapon to spellpower on a caster mainhand, as per iLvl budgeting, is NOT bad at all.

This is the singular best craftable BOE epic weapon for enhancement shaman in WotLK. It is better than Crimson Steel off of 10-man Sarth, even, and only slightly worse than Kel'thuzad's Reach! Situationally, it will be even better than KT's Reach, on fights with large AOE components or where there is a lot of running or specific fight mechanics where your shocks/Maelstrom LBs will be a larger component of your DPS.

Similar to Wraith Strike (another abnormally slow caster MH) this weapon should be sought after by (knowledgable) Enhancement Shaman.

When they are of similar iLvl, slow swing-speed caster weapons are VERY COMPARABLE to slow melee weapons for enhancement shaman. Should they pass raid caster weapons to casters? Probably, with the exception of Wraith Strike, perhaps. But this is craftable, and Enhancement Shaman should know it is great for them.

If you don't believe my logic, try using a good DPS simulator like EnhSim or Rawr, and fully understand all of the mechanics involved.

Don't assume until you know.

~Hungraa

Comment by Korwyn

The most important stat on a mainhand for Enhancement Shaman is the weapon speed, specifically the slowness. This dagger is strangely slow.

the above is almost correct... in reality the most important stat on a mainhand for Enh Shammies is NOT the weapon speed, but top-end dmg of the weapon, which is why back in TBC shammies would pick the Wicked Edge instead of Molten Fury for example. Even though they have same speed, Wicked Edge will do more raw dmg because of its higher top end. I realize were no longer playing TBC, but the same applies to WotLK weapons.

So, this dagger might be decent for an Enh Shammy, it would depend on how much of your total dmg comes from spell dmg, and whether another ~400sp will cover the loss of a pretty significant amount of physical dmg.

Comment by Hungraa

Korwyn, and perhaps many people like him, misunderstand the game's mechanics.One weapon is never better than another simply because it has a higher "top-end" damage. The weapon is better because the swing speed is slower, which means instant-attacks effectively multiply their damage output by a higher coefficient. A side-effect is that the "top-end" damage listed on the weapon is also higher.

Take two nearly identical weapons. 100 DPS on both of them, 2.0 swing speed on both of them. Their damage ranges could hypothetically be

200-200 (100 DPS, 2.0 speed)1-399 (100 DPS, 2.0 speed)

and they will provide exactly the same average DPS for any class in any situation in WoW even though one has higher "top-end" damage. Not a single calculation or skill in WoW actually uses the "top-end damage" in its calculations, there is no way to force your weapon to use the top-end more often, and the stat is effectively meaningless for all PvE intents and purposes.

Only the Average DPS and the swing speed of a weapon mean anything in PvE. In PvP you might actually want a higher top-end damage because it means your crits have the potential to be even higher, occasionally providing more spike. But just like you will sometimes roll the top-end damage, you have an equal chance to roll the bottom-end damage, and your average DPS will be unaffected in the end.

Korwyn's example about Enhancement Shaman taking Wicked Edge of the Planes over Claw of Molten Fury is interesting -- the two weapons seem very close in stats, but people that chose their weapon solely on the top-end of the damage might have ended up losing DPS. Whether or not the AGI / AtkPow tradeoff made up for the increase in 2.6 weapon DPS is the only factor to determine which weapon was better for Enhancement Shaman in TBC. The top-end damage was, is and probably always will be 100% irrelevant.

So, this dagger might be decent for an Enh Shammy, it would depend on how much of your total dmg comes from spell dmg, and whether another ~400sp will cover the loss of a pretty significant amount of physical dmg.

Looking at the weapon most shammies will pick up ASAP upon hitting 80, Stalactite Chopper or Titansteel Bonecrusher you can see that their top-end dmg is far beyong that of Titansteel Spellblade.

I specifically said that ~50% of a WotLK Enhancement Shaman's raid DPS is increased by spellpower. The 408 spellpower more than makes up for the loss of 60.6 weapon DPS from say Crimson Steel. 60.6 weapon DPS is approximately equivalent to 312 AtkPow for an Enhancement Shaman (this result is based on my use of EnhSim, a DPS simulator for Shaman). In general, 1 SpellPow contributes more DPS than 1 AtkPow for an Enhancement Shaman (confusing, we still generally don't want spellpower gear, because the iLvl budget makes SpellPow more expensive, but lots of caster gear isn't terrible for us). So the comparison is ~312 AtkPow lost to 408 SpellPow gained, which is a SIGNIFICANT UPGRADE.

Add in the fact that two of the best stats for Enhancement Shaman at practically any level of gear is Hit and Crit, and you're looking at a weapon that is, just as I said, better than every mainhand epic weapon <213 iLvL for Enhancement Shaman.

Top-end damage is simply a quick way to glance at a weapon and see if it hasa) more average DPSb) slower swing speedthan another weapon, and even then it doesn't always confirm both a) and b), as is the case with Wicked Edge and Claw of Molten Fury. It is more useful in the case of Enhancement Shaman to ignore the top-end damage stat altogether, and instead calculate how much 0.1 weapon speed is worth in effective Atk Power, which is generally >20 AtkPow in WotLK right now, and calculate gear effectiveness from there.

Here's the bottom-line: Enhancement Shamans do more damage with Titansteel Spellblade than Crimson Steel and it has nothing to do with top-end damage, or bottom-end damage, or fairy-unicorn damage, or any other useless stat you think is important.

~Hungraa

Comment by deciett

Cool thing that nobody seems to have commented on: When enchanted with +50 SP the black glow towards the guard of the dagger and the white glow at the tip of the dagger arent mutually exclusive... they both show at the same time. Makes for a pretty cool effect in my opinion.

Comment by shafat

my question is if somone who just dinged 80 should buy Titansteel Spellblade in 600g (mets cost) and use Ward of the Violet Citadel for a off hand (25 emblem of heroism) or just get Staff of Draconic Combat (heroic oculus last boss drop) or just wait for naxx or OS drop and than ull get a good wepon without paying 600g and 25 emblem of heroisms so my question is if the blade and off hand are better in alot from the staff? or i should just wait for naxx or OS drop i am an arcane mage raiding spec.

Comment by Nutzy35

depends on which stats you want/need, with the dagger and off-hand you will get a great deal more Crit, and some more Hit and Spell Power, but with the staff you get the spirit and intellect and good haste.

Comment by shawnjacobs

Hungraa's posts were excellent for the patch during which they were composed. They are still somewhat valid, though Blizz has been effectively working to get spell power main-hand weapons out of enhancement shaman hands in recent patches. For example, Wraith Strikeused to be superior overall DPS than Calamity's Grasp for most enhance shammies (this is no longer the case). The Titansteel Spellblade was a great pre-raid option for enhance shammies; now it can be considered a good option.

In response to some of the misunderstood and mistakingly uprated posts near the top of the page:

It's a weapon for a caster it doesn't matter the speed on it no one should be trying to use this for any melee class.

No - you are completely and utterly incorrect. This weapon is still a viable option for enhancement shaman. I speak with an underlying knowledge of the mechanics of the enhance shaman spec, and I appreciate Hungraa's posts (though somewhat outdated now) as they work at giving a greater understanding to the sometimes misunderstood mechanics of the game.

Edit: Linking the aforementioned items

Edit #2: Why the downranking? Respond with some constructive and valid feedback along with adequate proof to back it up.

Comment by pwerkso

Just a quick tidbit:

If you're transmuting all the saronite into titanium (which I am, to raise alchemy while gathering the materials), the metal material break down is 432 Saronite Bars or 864 Saronite Ore.

Comment by lg230

always lack of gold to buy items/gears/equipts from AH?we just enjoy our game, stop wasting our time to farm.I Recommend a good and honest site wich offer all the BOE items/gears/equiptswww.itemvendor.com

Comment by shipwrecksos

I would laugh so hard if I actually saw a rogue dual weilding these and putting poisons on them due to your comment! :D

Comment by Frederick

Recommendedalways lack of gold to buy items/gears/equipts from AH?we just enjoy our game, stop wasting our time to farm.I Recommend a good and honest site wich offer all the BOE items/gears/equiptswww.itemvendor.com

Comment by Binjo

Based on my rather loose theory crafting it's possible that with oodles of attack power that this could be the best dagger in the game for Sub. rogue purposes. Keep in mind that for my napkin math I used a subtlety build so I'm assuming +10% AP and +15% AGI, thus one point of AGI is 1.26 AP and one point of AP is 1.1 actual AP. That's the scale I used to search wowhead. For my comparison to a real rogue dagger I used Rib Spreader.

My first question was how much AP does it take to make this dagger better than Rib Spreader? Here's the math:

Where x is the AP-generated DPS, thus the amount of AP needed to make them equal is 4900. We also have to take in to account that Rib Spreader has quite a chunk of AP on it itself. According to my scale it has 217 AP, so actually to make these equal it takes 5117 AP.

Now the second question: is it possible to hit that amount of AP? I used my scale to find the items that would deliver the most AP, adding the numbers up after enchants (not including mongoose) I got 1580 agi and 2656 AP. Which with the subtlety talents is 4912, which still falls short of our goal. However with Death's Choice procs and Mongoose procs you can add a max of 750 agi, which bumps up AP by 945. This gives us a grand total of 5857 AP, now this dagger performs better than Rib Spreader.

Here's the numbers with this final amount of AP:

Rib Spreader: 1112-1293

Titansteel Spellblade:1144-1361

With raid buffs this difference becomes more noticable:

With Strength of Earth Totem and Mark of the Wild you get 230 AGIWith talented blessing of might 687 APwith BoK 10% to statsand with Trueshot Aura +10% AP

This creates a new scale where AGI is worth 1.39 AP and AP is worth 1.21 actual AP. Thus without trinket and mongoose procs we have 6812 AP and with them we have 7852 AP. The stats with these numbers are:

Rib Spreader: 1368 - 1549

Titansteel Spellblade: 1499-1716

Note: Yes I do know this is stupid and that no one with access to the level of gear I'm talking about would try this. But it's fun to theorize and people are too limited in thinking about these things.

Edit: Also I just read that Ambush is normalized at 1.7 speed, which means that even with the difference in weapon damage Rib Spreader will still ambush for more. Har.

Comment by ShadowQT

Hey guys, I was actually wondering, what is the hit cap for SPriests for like Naxx 10&25?

Comment by Lyph

Ooooh! So that's why they call it a Spellblade!

Comment by Lyph

Ooooh! So that's why they call it a Spellblade...

Comment by xen84

I crafted one of these for my transmog set after a thread on the WoW forums listed it as one of the items that hides its enchant. This is not true. The ugly ball of orange/purple fuzz that is the power torrent enchant still shows up on it.